Travels in the Near East (Voyage en Orient, 1843)

Nerval, Gérard de (1808-1855), translated by Kline, A. S. (contact-email)

In December 1842, Nerval departed for the Near East, later publishing articles deriving from his travels, and the work translated here, Voyage en Orient, which expanded on his journey. It should be noted that Gérard did not traverse the complete route described in the later chapters of his Introduction to Voyage en Orient. In October 1839, he travelled from Paris to Vienna, passing through Geneva, but then returned to Paris in 1840. It was in December 1842, after the end of his first bout of mental problems, that he travelled from Paris, via Marseilles, to Malta, Syros, Egypt (Cairo), Lebanon (Beirut), and Turkey (Istanbul/Constantinople), then returned via Syros, Malta, Naples, Pompeii, and Herculaneum, before arriving in Marseilles in December 1843, and reaching Paris in January 1844. He failed for example to visit Cythera, and so a degree of creative freedom should be anticipated when reading the whole work. The idea of the Orient was as important to his efforts as the reality.

His own anti-hero, Gérard stumbles, intelligently and endearingly, through a Levant on the brink of change. His Cairo, Beirut, and Istanbul are rooted in the past, but increasingly touched by modernity. His main focus of interest is the various people who inhabit them, as he chases his personal dream which is fated to endlessly vanish, in accord with the lasting theme of his life and work, unrequited love. An heir to, and exponent of, Romanticism he therefore set the scene for the poetic and literary movements to follow, in which reality and disillusionment increasingly outweighed the claims of individual aspiration.

This enhanced translation of Voyage en Orient has been designed to offer maximum compatibility with current search engines. Among other modifications, the proper names of people and places, and the titles given to literary and other works etc, have been fully researched, modernised, and expanded; comments in parentheses have been added, here and there, to provide a reference, or clarify the meaning; while minor typographic or factual errors, for example incorrect attributions, in the original text, have been eliminated from this new translation.

Author Details

Gérard de Nerval was the pen-name of Gérard Labrunie (1808-1855), essayist, translator, poet, playwright, and travel writer. He was a major figure during the era of French Romanticism, and is best known for his novellas and poetry, especially the collection Les Filles du feu (The Daughters of Fire), which contained a set of eight novellas, including Sylvie, and a selection of poems including El Desdichado. Nerval played a major role in introducing French readers to the works of German Romantic authors, including Goethe and Schiller, initially through his prose translation of the first part of Goethe’s Faust. His later work, merging poetry and journalism in a fictional manner, influenced Proust, particularly Sylvie which explored the theme of time lost and recalled. His last novella, Aurélia ou Le Rêve et La Vie, which drew on his interest in the significance of dreams, also influenced André Breton and the Surrealist movement.

At college, he met Théophile Gautier, who became a lifelong friend, and later, in 1836, accompanied Gautier on a trip to Belgium. In 1840 he took over the latter’s column in La Presse.

He began to experience serious mental health problems in 1841. In December 1842, Nerval departed for the Near East, later publishing articles deriving from his travels, and the work translated here, Voyage en Orient, which expanded on his journey. Between 1844 and 1847, Nerval travelled to Belgium, the Netherlands, and London, writing about his experiences. At the same time, he was writing novellas and opera librettos, and translating the poems of his friend Heinrich Heine, publishing a selection of translations in 1848. His last years were troubled by severe emotional and financial problems, and he sadly took his own life in January 1855. In 1867, Gautier wrote a touching reminiscence of him, ‘La Vie de Gérard’, which was included in his Portraits et Souvenirs Littéraires of 1875.

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Kline, A. S.

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